The Redemption of Sverre
by NoisyKrickett
Summary: Noticeably absent from the Portal Saga, Sverre had his own problems to deal with. He's meddled with the century-long cycle of Heim, a heavily Norse-inspired Plane, to the point where it can no longer maintain itself. Given a task by the divine Guardians of Heim, Sverre must take it upon himself to reverse his mistakes and save his home from certain ruin. Rated M for suicide/grief.
1. Chapter 1

Planar Chaos

Planar Profiles: Heim (Helheim)

The plane of Helheim is home to Sverre, a planeswalker who refers to himself by the title of Grave Birther. Sverre's influence on the plane is undeniable after the time he has called it home since the Mending.

The plane is organized around a large, central tree known as Yggdrasil sitting alone in a vast ocean. This world tree has three distinct layers, the roots, known as Helheim, the trunk, Medheim, and the branches, Azheim. The wurm Jormungandr lies coiled around the tree's roots waiting for the century-long cycle of Ragnarok to come to its climax before rising to Medheim to do battle with its perpetually reincarnated enemies, the Guardians.

Helheim, as the lowest layer of the plane, is the graveyard, resting place of both civilians and heroes who fight and die in the cycle of Ragnarok. The entrance is through a little known, well-guarded cavern, and it exists in perpetual twilight, rarely ever being what could be called warm. This layer of the plane is swampy, dotted with bogs that give rise to zombies who wander aimlessly until they finally decay and are drawn back into Yggdrasil to feed another cycle. There are sparse forests, little more than thickets, scattered among the bogs that are connected to the great central tree through their roots. A female Guardian named Ehla once presided over this layer, but was replaced by Sverre after he usurped her throne, converting the palace from which she ruled over the dead and dark beings into his laboratory for alchemical experiments into the cyclical nature of the plane and the source of the Guardians' pseudo-immortality. He had since been able to distill an essence from the remains of Guardians into a life-prolonging potion that he takes regularly.

Fertile Medheim is home to mortal beings such as beasts, ogres, and humans. This is the site of Ragnarok where the great battle between the serpent sleeping underground and the Guardians and immortals living in Azheim takes place. Some of the Alfen, a race that seems to be related to Elves of other planes, also make their home on Medheim rather than in the lowest branches of Yggdrasil with their kin. In the years between Ragnaroks, they enjoy a time of peace and prosperity, praising the Guardians as deities who protect the mortal races from the evils living in Helheim led by Jormungandr by laying down their lives. Some humans also take part in the great battle, hoping to be chosen by the angelic Valkyries to become an immortal spirit and join the Guardians in their treetop home. A mysterious species of deer roams Medheim, feeding only on the bark of Yggdrasil itself and shunning the many offshoots that form the forests of Medheim. They are said to have mystical healing powers and be linked to the Guardians.

The main city-states of Medheim are Trollhof, the hillside settlement of the ogres surrounded by treacherous fens and flat fields, Emblavin, a lush meadow that is the High Capital of the human occupied principalities, and the seaside kingdom of Skadivik nestled in an icy fjord and home to magical learning.

The highest layer, Azheim, is the home of the Guardians, their Valkyries, and a host of spirits, the ghosts of fallen mortal heroes waiting their turn to lead the forces of Ragnarok. Guardians that die in Ragnarok are reborn from one of these spirits, chosen by Valkyries during previous Ragnaroks. The Guardians emerge from the tree fully grown and fulfill a variety of religious roles for the mortal races below. The Alfen are not wholly immortal, but live long lives and serve as stewards of Azheim and the Guardians, caring for the tree and aiding the process of reincarnation while the Guardians are below in Medheim.

Other creatures inhabiting the plane are the Fenris, a pack of ravenous wolves that roam all over and attack everything in their path. It is even said that they hunt the sun and moon across the sky. It is almost impossible for a person to tame a Fenris, but there are stories of heroes from ancient times riding them into battle as mounts. Supposedly they turned feral and savage when their masters died and no one but their masters' descendants can attempt to tame the beasts. Since records are rather difficult to maintain on a plane that experiences a massive battle once every century, the birth and death records of the Fenris riders have been lost to the ages. Nobody has made the attempt for fear of their bloodline not being recognized as valiant enough to subdue a Fenris.

Off the coast of Medheim, lying just over the horizon and buffeted by the frigid north wind lie islands said to be inhabited by a race of Frost Giants. Few have dared venture forth to investigate this claim, but the ones who have returned tell tales of pale beings with glowing blue eyes that stand taller than trees. It is often said that Tyrodyn, Guardian of Justice, does constant battle with these Frost Giants to keep them away from Medheim. He is accompanied by the divine steed Silepener, a black horse with eight legs that can run faster than the wind and leap higher than the stars, as well as two ravens who keep him informed of the goings on in Medheim. Some say that if either raven brings back news of the wickedness of men that Tyrodyn will abandon his post and let the Frost Giants overrun Medheim.

There exists a race of dwarves who have set up their own small settlement around the cave leading to the roots of Yggdrasil and Helheim. Their histories state they were placed there by Yord, Guardian of the Earth, and that she charged them with keeping mortals from entering the underworld. They are aided by a small group of Alfen dedicated to her worship and that of the Guardian of Heroes, Tor, the sworn enemy of Jormungandr. The dwarves work tirelessly to make weapons fit for the Guardians and Valkyries to carry into battle against the forces of the underworld.

In recent cycles, it has become increasingly difficult to actually kill Jormungandr and bring Ragnarok to a close. This is likely due to Sverre's influence on the plane. Prior to the Mending when he first arrived on Helheim, Sverre resurrected the corpse of Jormungandr, turning the beast into a zombie familiar before it could be reabsorbed into Yggdrasil and reborn. He used the creature to defeat Ehla, Queen of the Dead, and replaced her symbolically with Oona, Queen of the Fae, a faerie from Lorwyn whom he secreted away rather than letting something he viewed as the most precious treasure of the multiverse be touched by the claws of death. The denizens of the bottom layer did not notice much of a difference, since the plane's magic affected Oona in such a way that she became the size of a normal human when she arrived with Sverre. Oona's light blue skin was similar enough to Ehla's pallid appearance that she could sit on the throne unopposed. Since Ehla did not take part in Ragnarok and had never been reincarnated, once Sverre delivered the killing blow she remained dead. No spirit existed in reserve to fill her place.


	2. Chapter 2

Planar Chaos

The Redemption of Sverre

Part One

"Oona, my love, what do you think?" Sverre said, turning his head to the side in order to line up with the profile of a warrior carved into the deep blue stone of the palace walls. Like the warrior in the relief, Sverre sported a winged helmet and a freshly trimmed beard. He held the same pose as the carved image, flexing his sword arm in front of him.

Oona chuckled at his theatrics. "I have to say it suits you."

"I'm glad you like it, my queen. I live to serve you." Sverre bowed low before her before falling face first onto the floor in a fit of convulsions.

Oona's eyes widened in fear. Her dainty blue hands grew clammy. "Sverre, my darling, what can I do?" She knelt beside him, pressing a cool hand to his forehead. She followed the line of his vision to an empty vial rolling away from them across one of the palace's rich rugs acquired on another plane. Understanding crashed over her. He was late for his dose of elixir.

Oona rushed down the hallway, her flowing dress catching around her ankles, leaving Sverre for as little time as she could manage to seek out his alchemical laboratory. The warm candle light of the palace grew colder in this wing. The ever present chill of Helheim seemed to grow stronger. Oona paused for a moment at the heavy doors, looking for all the world like stalwart guardians ready to bar her passage. She'd never been allowed in here before. Sverre hadn't wanted to trouble her with his experiments or some such thing. She steeled herself and wrenched them open with surprising strength before stopping in her tracks once again, this time in awe.

Brass coffin shaped containers lined the walls. A cabinet on the far side contained vial after vial of the golden liquid her beloved husband drank so he wouldn't waste away before her eyes. Between Oona and the cabinet sat a complex network of delicate tubes and glass receptacles twisting through and around each other on a heavy looking table.

Oona skirted the table, keeping an eye on the coffin shaped boxes as she made her way across the cold stone floor to the cabinet. One coffin in particular caught her eye. She snatched a vial and tiptoed up to it. Unlike some of the other coffins, this one had a coating of dust and a small window. Oona's soft breath blew away most of it, but the contents were still obscured. She reached up with her empty hand and rubbed at the glass before jumping back with a shriek.

Encased in this coffin, and it was a coffin of that she was certain, rested a maiden similar to herself. She had desiccated blue skin stretched taught over her bones and pale wispy hair that had fallen out in patches after what could only be centuries of preservation in the strange brass coffin. Oona felt herself becoming ill and made a point of swallowing. Her eyes involuntarily strayed to the other coffins in the room. How many were occupied by the dead? Who were they? Why were they in her husband's lab?

Realization once again crashed over her. These were the bodies of Guardians, born in the lofty realm of Azheim in the highest branches of Yggdrasil, the same world tree whose roots cradled their palace. It was their essence Sverre had been using to prolong his life. Each Ragnarok they would be reborn to do battle out of the tree, a renewable source of eternal life and youth.

Oona sank to her knees. There was no way such an imbalance of magic entering and leaving the world tree could be sustained. Sooner or later, the cycle would shift in favor of the destructive forces contained underground in Helheim rather than the order keeping all three layers of the plane in balance. With Azheim weakened, Medheim would be destroyed. The tree would wither and die without its roots fed and as the tree went, so too would the entire plane.

There had to be another way for Sverre to maintain his immortality. Oona looked back up at the cabinet. There had to be sixty or more doses of this potion left. She didn't know how much time she had to find another solution. For that she needed to speak to Sverre.

Sverre. He was still in their foyer, writhing on the ground in agony or worse. Oona's wings unfolded and she propelled herself down the hallways with leaps and flaps. At this size, she'd discovered, flying was difficult.

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling with empty eyes. A bit of foam rested on the corner of his mouth. Oona pulled his head into her lap, helmet and all, and gently poured the elixir into his mouth. She waited and prayed to whatever beings might be listening, perhaps the world tree itself was some sort of god.

Sverre coughed and sputtered, sitting up quickly and removing his helmet. His soft, brown hair fell to his shoulders now. Oona resisted the urge to reach out and touch it. Now wasn't the time.

"Thank you, my dear," Sverre said. "Where did you find this extra vial? I thought I was completely out of them."

Oona looked away when he turned to face her. She tucked her feet further underneath her and held her wings close. "Your lab."

What color had returned to Sverre's face left immediately. "What did you see."

"Everything. Sverre, you can't keep doing this to yourself or this plane." Oona forced herself to look at him. "You know just as well as I do that balance is important."

"I'm not affecting the balance. Once the Guardians are finished and dead, they're simply reborn again. The bodies are shells." Sverre let out a sigh. "I knew you wouldn't understand it."

"I understand more than you think. Their bodies are born from the tree. Where do you think a plant gets the energy it needs to bear fruit?" She gestured widely, indicating the roots of the tree surrounding their palace. "By disrupting this world's balance you've put it in jeopardy. I won't have another plane going the way of Lorwyn while I live on it."

"Oona," Sverre reached out to her and she cringed away. "Don't you think you're overreacting? I wouldn't have undertaken this if I hadn't done my research."

"Don't condescend me, Sverre," Oona cried. "I once ruled an entire plane and held the greatest magic that world had ever seen in place by the sheer force of my will. I am a Queen. The Queen of all fae beings. You will respect me and cease treating me like a delicate flower. I am no longer six inches tall." Oona rose, standing over Sverre and glowering. The elements of every plane conspired to give her the same ethereal appearance she'd had on Lorwyn. Her skirts and hair swirled in a breeze that refused to grace Sverre's sweating brow. Her wings seemed to glow in the candle light along with her piercing eyes.

Kneeling before her, Sverre suddenly felt awe for her power. He bowed his head and acquiesced, "Yes, my Queen."

Oona resumed kneeling on eye level with her husband. "I can't lose you like this," she indicated the empty vials cast by the wayside. "What happens when you run out? When your body starts to need more? There has to be another way for you to achieve your dream that doesn't involve destroying our home."

Sverre gazed into Oona's eyes. He had no idea where to begin searching for another path to immortality, but living in the land of the dead had to provide him with some clue. Elixir made from Ehla's corpse, the former Guardian of the Dead, had no different effects than elixirs made from her comrades. Oona seemed to have replaced her symbolically, but she lacked Sverre's necromancy. Could she truly rule the dead or would he be required to take on that mantle?

If only he'd been less rash in his youth and fully understood his new home before flexing his planeswalker muscles. If he'd been able to study Helheim and the other layers as they were, he might have gained a better understanding of the Guardians sooner.

Wait, he thought, that was it. All he had to do was find a way to restore the plane to how it once was and then he could find a better alternative.

"My dear, I have an idea. Our quest will be long and challenging. We must restore this plane to its original state, starting with the reinterring of my beloved pet." Sverre heard his voice crack. He and Jormungandr had so many fond memories together. Well, he had memories. The wurm zombie, on the other hand, lacked any such capacity.

Sverre rose and solemnly exited the palace. The cool humidity of Helheim washed over him. Sverre extended his arm wrapped in black ink, the tattoo he used to summon his monster pulsing with magic. The beast came, sliding across the land over subterranean hills, crashing through patches of forestland, and coating its belly with the dark sludge of the bogs.

"It's time for you to rest, old friend," Sverre said, releasing the necromantic enchantments holding Jormungandr together. The giant wurm fell away into the earth, a dark line of soil marking where its body had once been.

The fresh loam shuddered and began to reform. Sverre backed away in horror. This wasn't his doing. Jormungandr was waking up. Ragnarok was coming early.


	3. Chapter 3

Planar Chaos

The Redemption of Sverre

Part Two

Sverre stared in horror as Jormungandr's body writhed and convulsed. The wurm that had lain in his thrall for the better part of two hundred and fifty years rising without his express command hadn't been a possibility the planeswalker had ever considered. Certainly drawing creatures through the blind eternities caused changes, like Oona's size on various worlds and even the condition of Marthel's angel companion, Nadia, but it shouldn't have resulted in this. His gut feeling confirmed, he slammed the doors of his palace, formerly the residence of the Guardian Ehla, and headed straight for his laboratory. Oona followed close behind.

Amongst the brass coffins lay piles of books Sverre had acquired over the years. Some probably should have remained at the college of Skadivik, the center of magical learning in the realm of Medheim. He dug through the dusty tomes, tossing the unhelpful ones by the wayside for Oona to pick up and place carefully into new piles.

"You should be more careful with these," she said, examining a large book bound in red with a broken spine. Oona's eyes slid over to the coffin containing the blue skinned woman. She wrenched them away again, but they didn't stay focused on her husband for long. "That's Ehla, isn't it? Why wasn't she reborn like other Guardians?"

"According to legends and this text," Sverre thumped a book bound in dark green with gold edged pages, "Ehla never participated in the battles of Ragnarok. Her place was down here, guarding the dead and ensuring they were returned to the great tree to start the cycle again. She wasn't intended to die like the others."

"So the cycle has been propagating without its steward?"

"Not exactly. I've been doing a little bit."

Oona raised one white eyebrow. Her wings twitched upwards.

"Okay," Sverre relented, "I've been interfering further. You're right."

She watched as Sverre leafed through the book in silence for a time before speaking up again. "You know what you have to do, right?"

"No. That's what this book is for."

"Sverre," Oona sighed. "You have to return these bodies to the earth so they can rejoin the tree and their magic return to the cycle. You'll have to return the potions you've made too."

"No!" Sverre said a little too quickly. "I can't pour out my potions. Not until I have a new solution for immortality."

"You may be a planeswalker, Sverre, but you are still human. Humans aren't intended to live forever." Oona knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his cheek.

"But I'm different," Sverre insisted.

"Trying to be something you're not is what got us into this," Oona said calmly.

Sverre focused on the book in his lap. The Guardian of the Roots, Ehla, one of the few truly immortal Guardians was part of a trio with Yord, Guardian of the Earth, and Tyroden the Protector. Finding Tyroden would be nearly impossible, as it required sailing out beyond the horizon to the fabled Jotun Isles, a frigid wasteland inhabited by a terrifying race of frost giants Tyroden fought day and night. Yord, however, might be accessible enough and have the knowledge Sverre required to both achieve his own goals and restore the plane's cycle. Finding her however was another matter. The text described Yord as bound to the great tree, Yggdrasil, in much the same way as Ehla had been bound to its roots.

"I have to go into the tree," Sverre said.

"What?" Oona asked.

"The only way to find someone who can help us fix this mess is to go into the tree. Surely there's an entrance somewhere down here, a way into its heart. It has to be somewhere near the palace."

"I think I might have an idea."

000000

Oona waited for Sverre in her garden. Really it was his garden, a gift of eternal flowers sitting in a pool of sunlight that made its way from the world above down to Helheim through cracks and holes in the ceiling. Roots of Yggdrasil marked three of the garden's borders. By climbing one of the roots and following it upward, one came to a dark hollow that seemed to go deeper into the tree.

Her husband emerged from the palace outfitted in his typical traveling garb, his black cloak with the golden orobouros pin, his shining winged helmet, and the matching breastplate. A sword he hardly ever used hung from his belt. His beard appeared to be freshly trimmed, as did the mahogany locks peeking out around the edges of his helmet.

"You're impressing someone?" Oona remarked, a hint of jealousy in her voice.

"My dear, I go to parlay with a god inside the source of all life on this plane. I need to make a good impression."

"If you say so," Oona said, crossing her arms.

Sverre began to climb the root. He felt power moving through the roots up and into the trunk of Yggdrasil. Some of the roots were miles long, emerging into small subterranean forests down here in Helheim inside pools of sunlight like the one in which he'd created Oona's garden. They provided welcome breaks in the lowest realm's twilight, giving the only two living denizens of Helheim a glimpse into the world above.

"Sverre," Oona called just as he climbed out of sight, "be careful."

The opening into the tree stood before him. Here the roots at his feet curled around a dark stone etched with this plane's runic alphabet. In the dim light Sverre could make out their message.

Enter the tree and be judged.

An involuntary shiver went down Sverre's spine. By what metrics could he be judged, he wondered, and would he even pass by enough of a margin to have the opportunity to right his mistakes? It wasn't like he had a choice, after all. Sverre squared his shoulders and strode forward into the darkness.

He emerged into light. All around him the inside of the hollow, a spacious area that put the ballrooms of his palace to shame, glowed with a soft green light. A pedestal stood in the middle containing three gems the size of his fists put together, a deep blue sapphire, a shining white pearl, and a dull onyx with a long crack down the center. Each rested in a setting surrounded by smaller emeralds. More runic script encircled the base of the pedestal claiming it as a shrine to the three immortal guardians who served and protected the tree. The cracked onyx, Sverre noted, obviously was meant to represent the now dead Ehla.

"I come here for answers," Sverre muttered to himself, "and all I get is confirmation of what I already know. Ehla is dead. It's my fault. Now can someone be helpful for once and tell me how to fix it?"

"I thought that was obvious," a feminine voice said from behind him.

Sverre whipped around and came face to face with the most striking woman he'd ever seen. She stood a full head taller than he with long blonde hair tied in an elegant braid. She wore a simple white apron over a matronly green dress. Her eyes, simultaneously laughing and somber, made Sverre uncomfortable, almost like she could see past his exterior.

"Your companion, the Dualven woman, did she not tell you that in order to restore balance you must return that which has been lost?"

"Dualven?" Sverre repeated, confused.

"I believe you're more familiar with the term 'faerie'," the woman said, continuing to smile as a mother might smile at a child they'd caught breaking a minor rule. "My fellow immortal Guardians and I were surprised when you brought her here. There hasn't been a member of the Dualven in the whole of Heim for centuries."

"Who are you?" Sverre asked. Her unnerving gaze never once wavered. The woman didn't even seem to blink.

"I am Yord, Guardian of the Earth. One third of the force that serves Yggdrasil. You sought me out, did you not?" She tilted her head, all the while maintaining that smile even though her brow furrowed.

"Yes," Sverre said slowly. "I did. How do I restore balance? How can I fix what I meddled with."

"This world has been out of balance since the extinction of the Dualven," Yord said. "You will have to do more than return the bodies of my sister and children to the roots before Yggdrasil will be satisfied."

"But what do I have to do? Can't you just tell me?" Sverre begged. He began to grow annoyed with this Yord.

"Unfortunately, the one who could give you the knowledge you seek lies dead in a brass coffin in her own palace," Yord said, scowling. "Maintaining the death cycle fell to Ehla while the birth cycle fell to me. Our brother shores up defenses against the Jotun, keeping them confined to their own islands and away from the tree or they would destroy it in an apocalypse of ice. He cannot aid you either."

"Is there somewhere I can go to try and find more information, then?" Sverre asked.

Yord thought a moment. "The college of Skadivik, home of the wizards, may be able to give you more answers. More than any other group they have delved into this world's arcane forces."

"I'll look into it," Sverre said, brushing past Yord and moving towards the exit.

"Sverre," Yord said, looking over her shoulder at the departing planeswalker, "the tree will ask a price of you. If you wish to succeed you must be prepared to pay it."

"I'm prepared to do whatever it takes, provided I get to keep my life in its current state."

Yord looked away and hung her head as Sverre exited the tree back into the twilight realm once ruled by her sister. She moved to the pedestal and placed a hand on the cracked onyx. The sapphire and pearl flanking it sparkled dimmer than they had the last time she visited.

0000000

Sverre stood at one of the few exits of Helheim. When he stepped out, he would find himself on the north coast near the fjord protecting Skadivik, a town built around its wizard college and the pursuit of magic.

"Remind me again why you won't allow me to accompany you, my dear?" Oona asked. The way she enunciated the words tipped Sverre off to her sour mood.

"Imagine what the people would say if a blue-skinned woman with wings walked among them? Not only do you resemble Ehla, but this plane hasn't seen faeries in hundreds of years if Yord is to be believed."

"But aren't you here to research the faeries anyway?" Oona asked. She drew the hood of her cloak over her head. It was the green of pine needles in the summer. "Nobody will even say a word about me, look. They can't tell if I keep my hood up and my hair over my shoulders like this."

Sverre surveyed his wife. Her disguise was simple, but also convincing. In the rain outside, nobody would question the dark shadows making her skin appear bluish. Sverre sighed. He couldn't allow her to come, though. The risk of discovery was too great. Besides, he felt this quest needed to be completed independent of his magical companion.

"I need you to remain here, Oona. While I research these Dualven, it falls to you to rule Helheim in my stead. Keep tabs on the undead, and I also need you to return the bodies of Ehla and the other Guardians to the roots of the tree. I've prepared the graves, you just need to move the bodies. Each casket has a small latch that opens easily." Sverre placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "Please do this for me, Oona."

"What about the potions?" she asked, pulling back her hood.

"Those need to stay for now. I need all the time I can get to figure this out. If there are any extra when I've finished the quest, I'll pour them out myself."

Oona sighed. She didn't truly believe him, but she had to trust Sverre's heart was in the right place. Still, entering the laboratory without him, being surrounded by the corpses of fallen gods, even if they weren't gods in the true sense, frightened her. Sverre had shown himself capable of truly monstrous deeds. His path to redemption couldn't be an easy one, regardless of how perfectly he tried to complete the quest.

Sverre turned and continued his ascent up the ancient natural tunnel and into the fresh air of the coast. The saltiness of the sea was dampened by the rain. He pulled his cloak tighter around him. The golden helmet and breastplate had been left in the palace, but he still carried his sword. The wizards of Skadivik were known to be untrustworthy of outsiders. It likely had something to do with other mortal races viewing their use of magic as too similar to the Jotun as described in fables. They could manipulate water into mists filled with shards of ice like razors and summon avalanches or melt icebergs to flood towns, destroying everything in their path. Of course, Sverre did not believe mere mortals could harness that sort of power, but just the same he kept a hand on his useless sword.

He emerged above the town, a collection of wooden dwellings surrounding the central gray stone structure that was the college. Wizards in robes of various shades of red and blue stood atop the college's towers, arms thrust into the air as they called the storm and drew more power from it. Lightning struck the ground next to a statue depicting Kvass, Reyn, and Vora, three Guardians associated with magic and the sea, in the central courtyard.

Sverre descended down the mountainside that hid the fjord from the south. He made his way carefully. If he fell, the bottles containing elixirs he'd brought with him could break and then he'd be stranded without his bottled life. The rain turned rough ground into a slippery, treacherous, very pointy path towards the college.

"If this is where I'm supposed to be," Sverre muttered to no one in particular, "then grant me safe passage."

His journey down the mountainside proved shorter than he anticipated and soon enough he stood at the gates of the Skadivik college. Heavy wooden doors fortified by iron and guarded by a diminutive woman in red robes barred his path into the college.

"Halt!" she cried, throwing out her hands. Mist began to form around Sverre. He stood as still as he could. "What's your business with the college?"

"I come seeking knowledge of history," Sverre said. Something about the woman reminded him of Ashleigh. Possibly the red hood.

"Ye come so armed?" she raised an eyebrow and eyeballed his sword.

"The roads are dangerous," Sverre said by way of an explanation.

"I'll let you in, but the Guardians of Magic will be the true judge of your intentions."

Sverre fought the urge to roll his eyes. Again with the judging, he thought. The doors swung open without any sort of interference from the wizard and the mist dissipated.

"You're lucky they like you or I'd have run you through with a dozen spikes of ice," the wizard chuckled before stepping aside.

Sverre glided past the young wizard with all the nobility he could muster. The statues of the three Guardians seemed to watch him as he crossed the courtyard and entered what he could only assume was the central tower of the wizard college.

After a few awkward conversations that ended with him being waved in the general direction of the library, Sverre finally located the room. Once inside, he was displeased to discover he was not the only person in the high-ceilinged room lined with yards of wooden shelves. Even more shelves housed even more books in the center of the room, and at one desk in the corner sat a hooded figure. The only feature Sverre could see were black hands covered in fur. A vaguely feminine voice muttered in an unintelligible language.

"Hello?" Sverre said, announcing his presence.

The hooded figure turned, surprising Sverre with her canine snout. "Oh," she said, turning away and pulling her hood tighter over her face. "I thought you were one of the usual attendants. Nobody disturbs me in here."

"I'm looking for books on the Dualven. Do you know where I can find them?" Sverre asked. He'd encountered planeswalkers before, but never one who was so obviously out of her element as a Khenra from Amonkhet on a plane without any analogous race.

"Fifth shelf from the door, seven columns from the left, fourth row from the top," the Khenra woman said quietly.

"Far from home?" Sverre asked, making small talk.

"Sort of."

"Same with me. The blind eternities are a good deterrent when it comes to adventures."

"Blind eternities?" the Khenra woman's ears perked up. "You… you know?"

"You don't get to be as old as me without meeting planeswalkers from all walks of life. This is a far cry from the desert world you're accustomed to."

"I'm Tryphaena," she said, voice growing louder as she came closer.

"Sverre. I've called this plane home for a while, but I'm originally from a place called Dominaria."

"You have no idea what a relief it is to talk to someone who knows about what I am," Tryphaena said. "The wizards think I got cursed or something and am looking for a cure. Here," she reached out and plucked a book from the shelf. "This will give you a lot of information. It details the old custom of hunting fey creatures."

"So what are you looking for?" Sverre asked.

"I need something powerful enough to take on a god," Tryphaena said, scowling. "I don't know if you've ever been to the city of Nakhtamun, but we train all our lives for the trials and at the end only one out of our crop gets the glory of the afterlife. Except when I was chosen for the honor, but I didn't face the demon or reunite with my fallen friends or my brothers. I wound up somewhere far away, somewhere cold. I'd never actually known cold before. The refreshing waters of the Luxa, yes, but never bone chilling, uncomfortable coldness."

"Sounds like you've got a pretty good idea of where you're going, then. May I suggest paying a visit to a place called Theros next, if you're comfortable with remaining the only canid on the plane?"

"I can just play up the cursed angle, I guess," Tryphaena sighed. "It's getting old."

"Anyway, thanks for the help, Tryphaena." Sverre took his pile of books and found a space at another desk where he could begin working.

"Thanks for the conversation, Sverre," Tryphaena replied before returning to her own desk and her own studies.


	4. Chapter 4

Planar Chaos

The Redemption of Sverre

Part Three

Sverre pored over the books in the library of Skadivik. The rain slammed into the thick paned windows, drumming an incoherent rhythm. The stone of the college's walls seemed to absorb the moisture from outside. Sverre leaned against the cool walls, resting his face against the warm gray of the stone. When he got into this fevered state at home, Oona provided his cool relief. Sverre righted himself. Oona wasn't here, he had to do this himself.

Tryphaena peered around the bookshelf separating them to look at Sverre. "Are you quite alright?" she asked. "It's nearly midnight. I haven't heard a word out of you in hours."

"I'm fine," Sverre responded to the Khenra woman, brushing off her concern.

"When was the last time you ate?"

"What does it matter?"

"When training, a warrior must remember to eat or their body has nothing to fuel itself. It is the same with the mind." She crossed her arms, one ear drooping slightly. "Stay here. I'll fetch us something from the kitchens. They won't mind me. It's common knowledge around here that the 'cursed berserker' likes to be alone."

Sverre raised his eyebrows in an expression of understanding as Tryphaena walked away. He should have figured that the wizards would mistake her for one of the Berserkers, a class of warriors that used charms to turn themselves into wolf-like beasts similar to the werewolves of Innistrad. The Berserkers, however, were more deliberate about their transformations into their wolf state. Transforming back into humans, however, was as much an involuntary affair as their counterparts on a far flung plane. Tryphaena's body appeared to the natives of this plane to be stuck at a halfway point in that transformation.

He returned his attention to the book in front of him. It detailed the history of hunting the Dualven, a fey race standing as tall as the humans but sporting intricate butterfly-like wings. Illustrations depicted them as having sharply beautiful features, like more terrifying elves. It had apparently been thought that the Dualven opened the gates for Ragnarok given their secretive and sometimes mischievous nature. Humans led the hunt, but were joined by other Medheim races in the latter stages against the counsel of the Alfen, the elves. After the Dualven's extinction Ragnarok still came and the Alfen were vindicated.

It seemed to Sverre that the Alfen and the Dualven served as two sides of the same coin. The benevolent Alfen lived high in the branches of Yggdrasil in Azheim, tending to the tree and the Guardians birthed from it. The Dualven lived down below, concerning themselves with the more ambiguous arts and hiding in sacred groves mortal races dared not enter. Occasionally some sage would be given magical knowledge by a member of the Dualven.

"Here," Tryphaena said, holding a plate of food near Sverre's face. "The menu is rolls and fish. Always rolls and fish, if you were curious. And no, we don't have any other rolls, just the rye ones. To drink is rainwater." She gently cradled two mugs against her chest with her arm, her other hand held her own plate of food. "They say it keeps us closer to the Guardians of Magic or something. I hope they never get disappointed by their gods."

"I don't think they can," Sverre said. "Ragnarok occurs once every century, and their gods are reborn to fight and die for them."

"See, that's noble. That's godlike." Tryphaena smiled. Sverre took his plate and she handed him his mug of rainwater as well.

"This isn't like any fish I've ever seen," Sverre said, sniffing the rancid looking piece of meat. He recoiled.

"My sense of smell is at least a hundred times as strong as yours and I'm not complaining. Try it. It's got a nutty sort of taste."

"What kind of fish is this?" Sverre asked, taking a small bite.

"Something they call hakarl." She stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

"Your pronunciation is off," Sverre said. He'd heard of this dish, fermented meat of deep dwelling sharks that took five months to make in order to not poison you.

"You eat the fish or you starve. That's their rules," Tryphaena said, returning to her studies.

"Tryphaena," Sverre began.

"Yes?" She leaned back around the shelf.

"Thanks," Sverre said. "My wife would kill me if I didn't come back alive."

"Smart lady." The Khenra woman snorted a laugh and went back to her books.

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"I'm going to kill him when he comes back," Oona said, dragging yet another corpse out to its final resting place. She understood her husband's affiliation with the dead, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Especially, Oona thought, when she had to deal with desiccated corpses robbed of their magic. She stopped once more to hike her skirts back up and tie them off.

Oona grabbed the corpse of a warrior under the arms and continued to drag it along the ground, using her wings to help herself keep balance. She teetered this way and that, unused to supporting such weight. The strain on her back was beginning to be too much.

At last she reached the hole, one of many Sverre dug in this pool of sunlight that lit their garden. Oona felt it was appropriate the warriors of light be buried under one of the only direct sources in all of Helheim. She heaved one last time, the corpse landing with a thud six feet below her on a bed made of the winding roots of Yggdrasil. She fell to her knees and uttered a prayer she'd made up for each body she'd buried thus far, "May your body return to the tree and your spirit inspire the people of Medheim."

Oona weakly pushed earth from the pile at the foot of the grave into the hole, covering the warrior's body. Only a handful of corpses were left, including the one that fascinated and repulsed her so, the body of Ehla.

She made her way slowly back into the palace, shoulders and back sore from hauling corpses. Rather than going to her lavish bedchamber, Oona went to Sverre's lab. She stood in the doorway, following the tubes of his alchemical equipment with her eyes. Oona sighed. Sverre had truly believed to be cheating death in his endeavors, but all he'd done was stave it off for a while. In the end, he would meet the same fate as the Guardian he'd killed.

A tear escaped Oona's eye. She brushed it away quickly. Helheim was a dark world filled with death, but Medheim and Azheim held no place for her. Sverre had tried so hard to shield her from the more unsavory aspects of his life. He'd treated her like a treasure, something delicate and to be prized. Oona balled her fists. She'd been a queen and a general, she was still a queen in her own right. How dare he belittle her so? How dare he give her gifts and call her by cute names and whisper all the things he wanted to do to her in her ear until she turned purple from blushing and giggling? Oona sank to her knees and covered her face as she started to cry.

"Sverre," she sobbed into her hands, "did my mistakes teach you nothing?"

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Sverre spent a week at the college of Skadivik. When he had exhausted their libraries, he knew three things for certain: Yord was crazy, there was no way he could restore an entire race, and he still didn't know how else to become immortal.

"Leaving so soon?" Tryphaena asked.

"I've found all I can here," Sverre said. "Time to seek out other sources of knowledge."

"Where will you go?"

"I'd like to investigate some of these sacred groves."

"Good luck. Don't die."

"Khenra saying?"

"Tryphaena saying. Good allies are hard to come by, Sverre. I'd like to have one on this plane." She handed him a package wrapped in soft leather. "Take some hakarl for the road."

"Pronunciation is still off." Sverre accepted her gift and turned to go.

It took a small fishing craft to get Sverre around the edge of the fjord and onto coastline that wasn't lined with sheer mountains. His guide departed without a word and Sverre continued his journey in silence as well until he found a town around midday.

"Excuse me," he asked a man carrying a bundle of firewood, "do you know if there's a sacred grove around here?"

"I know nothing about sacred, sir, but cursed ones abound in these parts. It's them wizards over on the fjord, messing with magic like only the giants have. They pull ice from the mountains and do other things that aren't natural."

"Cursed is as good a place to start as any," Sverre muttered to himself. He continued, louder this time, "Which way do I go to reach these cursed groves?"

The man went white in the face and pointed off to the southwest.

"Thank you, sir," Sverre said, walking confidently in the direction the man indicated.


	5. Chapter 5

Planar Chaos

The Redeeming of Sverre

Part Four

Sverre had been walking in the abandoned forest for hours. He used the term "abandoned" to describe it in his head due to the signs of past human habitation. Here lay a collapsed barn coated in moss, there a burned out longhouse and surrounding structures. The mortal denizens of this plane seemed to be giving whatever hid inside this forest an increasingly wider berth.

He stopped, scanning the ground ahead of him. The easiest way to find a sacred Dualven grove, according to the texts he'd studied, was to follow a trail marked by a particular species of mushroom. It seemed that fungal faerie rings were a concept that transcended planes, much like wizards being drawn to blue mana. Sverre glanced upward at the thick canopy of the forest. Even with the tightly tangled mass of branches he couldn't shake the feeling that this deep twilight he found himself in had magical roots.

Of course, every tree had magical roots. They were all connected to Yggdrasil. He'd seen that much from underground.

The small, spotted mushroom for which he'd been searching caught his eye and Sverre continued forward, pushing his way through the thick brambles that snagged at his cloak.

"Damn thing," Sverre muttered, yanking the fabric out of the thorny bush and wrapping it around his arm. He pressed on, keeping his eye sharp for more mushrooms.

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Oona had successfully buried all the bodies except Ehla's. She stood in front of the dusty brass coffin utterly mesmerized by the woman inside. The coffin itself possessed so many locking mechanisms that she found herself unsure of where to start. This deity locked inside also terrified her. Everything the corpse represented caused Oona's stomach to churn. She felt as though she would vomit.

"I don't have a choice," Oona said, balling her fists. "I'm not delicate. Sverre isn't here to perform grand romantic gestures while I don't lift so much as a finger. I am still a queen, and I must behave as such."

Oona started at the top of the series of locking mechanisms, following them across the coffin and keeping her eyes on them as best she could. The serene face behind the glass kept drawing her gaze. They might have been sisters. The clicking of the locks felt like an irregular timer, counting down the seconds until it was time for Oona to open the coffin and confront the corpse of a god murdered by her own dear husband in a childish grab for power.

A pale, feminine hand reached out and unlatched the final lock. Oona whipped around and found herself in the presence of a great magical power that emanated warm feelings of love, serenity, and protection. The woman who possessed this power stood slightly taller than Oona herself with long blonde hair in a simple plait wearing a well worn green dress and a white apron.

"Yord," Oona gasped. The resemblance between this Guardian and her images in texts and reliefs came as a shock to Oona for some reason. Every detail down to the crow's feet around her eyes and a mole on her right cheek matched representations exactly.

"I would like to carry my sister to her final resting place, Oona of Lorwyn."

"Far be it from me to deny your request," Oona said, curtsying out of the goddess's way.

Yord opened the brass coffin, wincing as the hinges squeaked. She looked sadly on her dear sister's desiccated form. There was nothing left of Ehla in this body, a body that should have lasted until the end of time barring accident or malice. She reached out to move a strand of hair away from the corpse's face, but it crumbled in her hands.

"I may need your assistance, Oona of Lorwyn. Her body appears to be too brittle to move the distance between this room and your garden."

"Whatever you need, your..." she didn't know how to properly address a true deity.

"Yord is fine. A familiar exchange will benefit us in the long run if you are to aid me in filling the void left by my sister these long years."

Yord's strength was surprising. She closed the lid of the heavy brass coffin and tilted it, catching one end with ease. Oona hefted the other end from the floor, wobbling on her feet with her wings fluttering to help her keep balance. Together the two women moved slowly through the halls of the palace that had once belonged to the woman whose body they were transporting.

"I do commend your taste in decoration," Yord said, attempting small talk to keep Oona at ease. "My sister and I had very different ideas on how to liven up a home."

"Even though Helheim is the realm of the dead, warm lighting and some fur rugs never hurt anyone. It helps having to keep this place suitable for guests. You seem to already know Sverre and I are not from this world."

"I'm aware of the other worlds, however they are usually none of my concern. We serve the Great Tree, and its concerns are Heim."

"Sverre may need assistance in solving this mess he's made for himself, Yord. Our friends have many talents and experiences."

"Sverre must pay restitution himself," Yord snapped. "This is the decree of Yggdrasil."

"I see," Oona said.

They lowered the coffin to the ground next to the final grave. Yord knelt down and hefted the lid open again, viewing her sister's body in the bright light of Heim's sun streaming down from the world above. If she had been a different sort of Guardian she might have smote Sverre upon her discovery of his crime, and Oona for daring to take the place of Ehla regardless of her degree of complicity.

But Yord was not that kind of Guardian. She was the Mother of Heroes, Guardian of the Branches, a being responsible for birth rather than death. Even her sister hadn't been a creature of death, but of rebirth. None of the servants of the tree dealt death to the beings of Medheim. Even Tyroden never truly was able to kill the ice giants he fought continuously in his divine quest to protect the Tree.

"I'm so sorry, sister," Yord whispered, a single tear escaping the corner of her eye.

"I'm sorry too," Oona said quietly. "What Sverre did was wrong. But I promise we will make it right."

"Indeed," Yord said. "Help me, Oona. It's only right."

The two women, one goddess and one faerie, delicately lifted the body of Ehla from the brass coffin. As Oona leaned over the edge of the grave to lower the corpse down she saw a soft bed of beautiful flowers growing higher and higher to meet them and take Ehla back down into the earth where she would rejoin the tree that gave her life. The velvety petals caressed Oona's hands almost sympathetically as they took the burden of holding a dead god out of her hands.

"Will you remain here, Oona?" Yord asked as she watched Ehla sink lower and lower on her bed of flowers.

"I have held your sister's place all this time," Oona said, "yet I understand none of her duties. I was a queen in another life, I believe I could be again if that is what is required of me."

Yord smiled warmly. "I'm glad you feel that way. We have much more to discuss."

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Sverre found himself standing at the edge of a dim clearing ringed by the small spotted mushrooms he'd been following from the forest's edge. This hardly fit his idea of a sacred grove, considering it seamlessly blended into the forest around it, but he couldn't deny the residual feeling of power that dwelled here.

He still had no idea what he was looking for. Humans feared the Dualven and it showed in their sparse records. Maybe he thought he would find bodies to reanimate and restore the faerie race that way. Sverre sat down on the edge of the ring of mushrooms, fiddling with one near his knee. Without thinking, he plucked it from the ground.

A different magic welled up from the center of the ring. This magic felt darker and sent an involuntary shiver down Sverre's spine. He scrambled backwards, away from the source of this power and into the bushes. Something had been sealed here within the faerie ring and Sverre had idiotically set it free.

A pack of monstrous hounds erupted from the ground. These were not berserker warriors, their size alone made that impossible. Each beast stood taller than Sverre at the shoulder. Their massive jaws dripped thick saliva onto the ground. They sniffed at the air, yellow eyes glowing in the half light. Sverre held his breath, willing the giant hounds to run away without tearing him to shreds.

The leader let out a howl and began bounding towards Sverre's location, but leaped over him and continued on. The rest of the pack followed suit and Sverre started to breathe again. He got a few calming gulps of air before a wooden staff thunked into the back of his head.

"Are you an idiot?" a voice growled. Sverre looked up to see a troll looming over him wearing traveling robes that appeared to be made of some sort of burlap. He wore a hammer talisman around his neck and one of his tusks had the raven of Tyroden carved into it.

"Uh..."

"No need to answer. Of course you're an idiot. I'm a disenchanter and even I wouldn't touch that ring, so why would a human even think about it?"

"What did that do?"

"Only released a pack of Fenris, hulking hounds that supposedly chased the sun and moon across the sky and could only be subdued by their riders and their descendants. Of course, those records of Fenris blood are lost to the ages so packs were trapped in these faerie rings by the Dualven and other races working together in harmony. Not that you idiotic humans would know that. You had to go and kill them all." The troll continued his grumbling rant, trudging around the edges of the faerie ring and surveying the damage.

"I'm looking for information on the Dualven," Sverre said, standing up.

"Why?"

"I've been given a quest by the Guardians." This troll seemed religious if his talisman and tusk carving were anything to go by. Perhaps he'd believe Sverre's story.

"What's your name, human?"

"Sverre."

"Surname?"

"None."

"Profession?"

"Technically I guess you'd consider me a necromancer but I prefer the term Rebirth Artist."

"Rott the Disenchanter. Charmed, I'm sure," Rott growled. "What Immortal Guardian would send you on a quest?"

"That would be Yord, Guardian of the Branches."

Rott mulled this over in his mind. Why would the Mother of Heroes choose someone who stood in direct contrast to her work, someone more readily aligned with the dark forces of Ragnarok, to go on a quest?

"You don't believe me," Sverre sighed. "I tell you, necromancers get zero respect wherever we go. Everyone always just freaks out any time I mention anything related to dead stuff. Isn't there a Guardian of the Roots whose whole purpose is the rebirth of the Ragnarok cycle through the roots of Yggdrasil?"

Rott rolled his eyes. "Don't quote the epics at me. I transcribed some of them."

"Why is it so weird that I'd get picked to go on a quest related to the Dualven? They're all dead. I'm a necromancer. Seems like I'd be pretty useful."

"Fine." Rott stomped back over to Sverre. "You knowing stuff won't hurt. But we can't stay here. Come with me."

Sverre followed Rott deeper into the forest.


	6. Chapter 6

Planar Chaos

The Redemption of Sverre

Part Five

Sverre sat alone in Rott's hut. Well, it was less of a hut and more of a hollowed-out hill loosely held together by piled stones and the roots of a dead tree that served as a chimney of sorts. A flat pan sat on the hearth, filling the small space with the soft bubbling and heavenly smell of a lingonberry cordial. Various other lingonberry concoctions in jars were scattered on Rott's disorganized shelves amongst his spell components. A recipe labeled "Grandma Rott's Lingonberry Spice" was pinned to one of the walls with a small knife.

He had been with Rott for some time. Days and nights were difficult to discern from one another in the perpetual twilight of the forest. Rott had taken care to educate Sverre on everything the woods had taught the troll in his time among them. The roots had taught Rott how to break the artificial creations of man, which put him on the path of being a disenchanter.

Rott returned from his foraging expedition with another basket full of lingonberries and a few rabbits.

"You really like those, don't you?" Sverre asked, gesturing to the bright red berries that any other survivalist might mistake as poisonous.

"They're a family favorite," Rott responded. He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring to an impossibly wide position. "That's about done, I'd say. That's good. It's starting to get colder at night."

"Rott, I've been here I don't know how long and we aren't any closer to finding anything out about the Dualven or how I'm supposed to resurrect them."

"You'll have to pray on that. Maybe Tyroden will send you a vision with one of his ravens, or your patron, Yord, will give her hero some guidance," Rott scoffed. He still held skepticism about Sverre's mission from the Guardians.

"Isn't there anywhere else I can go to find something?"

"Not unless you can summon the bridge to Azheim. Mortals can't get an audience with the Guardians in person. That honor is reserved for their favored children, the Alfen."

"Damn elves," Sverre muttered to himself.

Rott rolled his eyes. "Go find a sacred site and pray. That's the best advice I can give you. These woods swallowed up all traces of the Dualven long ago, and humans aren't likely to know they ever really existed since they haven't seen any."

"Nobody has ever seen Tyroden," Sverre responded.

"But we haven't been attacked by the frost giants either. He prevents them from joining the Ragnarok battle and swaying the tide in favor of the forces of darkness." Rott tapped his temple while he skinned one of the rabbits. "Gotta think about these things."

Sverre huffed and moved to sit in the corner of the hut. What good would prayer do? The gods set him on a quest and he knew what he had to do. He didn't need any more guidance. Sverre removed his helmet and laid it next to his golden breastplate. They were flashy, but he'd been unable to part with them. He leaned back against the warm earthen wall of Rott's hut wrapped in his cloak with its ouroboros pin under his chin.

If any of you want to help me, Sverre prayed halfheartedly, now would be a good time.

The warmth of the hearth, soft bubbling and smell of the cordial, and the sizzling of rabbit meat soon lulled him to sleep.

Sverre dreamed. He dreamed of a man that seemed vaguely familiar to him. He carried a bowl filled with a red, sweet smelling liquid, though it wasn't wine. This man appeared to have a visible wound across his throat that had long since faded to a scar. The bowl and the scar reminded Sverre of the statue he'd seen in the great courtyard of the wizard college of Skadivik. This man in the statue had stood with his bowl humbly tipping it downward, like he was pouring a libation.

The man, Kvass the Guardian of Wisdom, put a finger to hid lips in a shushing motion. Sverre found himself opening his mouth to receive the libation of honey and Kvass's own blood, the fabled Mead of Wisdom.

Sverre did not like what this divine wisdom revealed to him. The Dualven's bodies had long been returned to the tree, leaving nothing for him to resurrect. His own meddling with the tree, the cycle, and the other Guardians had hastened Ragnarok. Bald, also known as the bright god, Guardian of light and sacrifice, had already fallen, starting the cascade of events that inevitable led to Ragnarok. Sverre was running out of time. The only way the tree could birth the Dualven once more was with an immense surge of magical power. That power would require an immense sacrifice from Sverre.

At first Sverre thought the sacrifice required of him would be Oona. In his dream-vision brought on by Kvass's blood he kept seeing flashes of her sorrow-stricken face, tears freely flowing down her blue face. She was a faerie from another plane, but through her he could theoretically resurrect a long-dead race. However, his final vision was of a taught rope swinging back and forth. The load it supported was out of his sight, but Sverre felt a tightness in his throat that was unmistakeable.

He jolted awake to a dimly lit hut. Rott sat on the ground before the hearth, eating his dinner by hearth- and candlelight. His frame cast a huge shadow on the wall next to Sverre. He found it menacing.

"Did you see anything?" Rott asked nonchalantly. "You never sleep at this time of evening. That had to be a divine dream."

"I'm looking in the wrong places. There aren't any bodies for me to find. I don't know what I'm going to do." Sverre's statement was only half a lie. He didn't know what he would do now that he had this knowledge. The right thing would be to hang himself from the branches of Yggdrasil as it seemed only his death would satisfy the tree.

"Let the Guardians' wisdom guide you." Rott did not turn around. He couldn't see Sverre's face turn whiter than the hair of Bald the Sacrifice.

"I need to leave. Now." Sverre put on his golden breastplate and helmet.

"You need to eat something first." Rott gestured to a plate sitting near the hearth, keeping warm.

"Is it rabbit and lingonberries with lingonberry sauce again?" Sverre asked, already knowing the answer.

Rott smiled widely.

"Anything is better than hakarl I guess," Sverre sighed. He sat down next to Rott and took up his plate.

"Did you see anything else?" Rott asked.

"Just my wife crying," Sverre said. "And the end of the world."

"Ragnarok isn't the end, but the beginning of another cycle," Rott said sagely.

"I'm not so sure about this one. He, Kvass, he told me that the events have already been set in motion for Ragnarok to come."

"Impossible. We haven't heard the mourning wails of-"

Rott was cut off by a loud shrieking. This cry made all who heard it weep tears of profound sorrow. Sverre felt as though his soul had been torn from his body and wrung dry of all its tears at once. Even the rough and genial Rott wept at the sorrow of the goddess Frija-Saga, who cried for her son Bald in her halls under the sea that would never again see the light cast by her bright and beautiful boy. As wave after wave of loss and pain washed over him Sverre wondered why human souls must be reborn as Guardians if this was what awaited them. Surely Yord had more compassion than this.

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A tear pricked Oona's eye. Soon it became a torrent as the goddess's cries reached the dark depths of Helheim. She slumped over in Ehla's throne, face buried in her hands as the tears kept coming. She couldn't make them stop.

Yord appeared before her, weeping tears of her own. "Something has happened, Oona. It's too soon."

"What is?" Oona gasped between sobs. She looked up at the goddess and saw the pain apparent on her face.

"Bald has perished too soon. It is not yet time in the cycle for his spirit to be released." Yord kept her voice steady. "Truly I feel his mother's pain, for in a way I am mother to them both. Without Bald's light and Frija-Saga's protection of the seas from her halls in Fensalir, the beings of Medheim are vulnerable to attack during this crucial time when they should be prospering and preparing for the next Ragnarok."

"Who is responsible for this?"

"I can only assume Sverre's meddling with the tree's power can have done this. We must dispose of his potions, Oona, to prevent things from tipping further towards darkness."

Oona hiccupped. "I fear you may be right. May I keep a few, though? Just enough to sustain him for a brief time until another solution can be found?"

"You love your husband that dearly?" Yord asked, not bothering to wipe her tears away. More would soon replace them.

"He must have hope if we are to succeed."

"I see your point, Oona, Guardian of the Roots. I will take all but five of his potions."

AN: So I've actually had a lot of fun researching Norse Mythology and the Eddas to help build out the plane of Heim. Frija-Saga is a combination of two goddesses that may actually be the same being since they're both closely associated as partners of Odin, one as his wife, Frigg, and one as his drinking-buddy, Saga, and it's theorized by some scholars that Frigg's halls of Fensalir aren't in a swamp but at the bottom of the ocean as she could be some kind of sun-related deity since the sun sets below the sea to coastal/seafaring cultures like the Norse and Vikings.


	7. Chapter 7

Planar Chaos

The Redeeming of Sverre

Part Six

The roots of Yggdrasil greedily sucked the golden, shimmering liquid of Sverre's potions from the ground. Yord and Oona looked on in silence as the cries of the mother goddess of the seas subsided into low rumbling sobs. The sun filtering down from Medheim seemed dimmer, not as vibrant or life-giving.

"Bald is the first of the reborn gods to die, but he is also one of the first to be reborn," Yord explained solemnly, pouring out flask after flask and watching the glimmering golden magic surge into the tree from whence it came. The cracks in its bark glowed as its power was restored.

"I thought you said he was the son of another Guardian?" Oona asked.

"He is. The first beings reborn are the Guardians who govern the natural world, such as the seas, land, and sky, to rebuild them from the chaos that overtakes Medheim in the wake of so much death. Once the natural order is reestablished other Guardians will come into being to fulfill the needs of mortals. There is one day where Tyroden can rest from his battle with the giants each cycle, and he spends it in Fensalir getting drunk with his wife. Bald is the result of that." Yord wrapped one arm around the shaking Oona's shoulders. "Though I wish we had more time to teach you, my little sister, you will have to see this all transpire with your own eyes first."

"Why is this world so cruel," Oona caught herself saying. She straightened up and extended her wings to their full splendor. "Do not answer that. I was a Queen in another life. I know sacrifices must be made to ensure balance and prosperity."

"This world is a closed system governed by the tree. Yggdrasil is the soul of Heim, but it knows no morality aside from its own. What you and I and mortals may see as cruel, yes I agree with you on that point, I am not heartless, is simply the way its cyclical magic works."

"I have seen worlds with fantastic magical devices crafted from metal. They have ships that soar in the air. The Ragnarok cycle means that nobody on this world will ever have those things, not even in the future."

"Our world is different," Yord said. "We must preserve that which we can and rediscover what was lost."

"It is, I know that." Oona sighed. She and Yord stood side by side, watching the tree drink potion after potion until its bark began to sparkle brightly where it touched the ground of Helheim. The glinting of the bark faded the higher it rose.

"I must return to the branches, but your next task is to find Bald and bring him to the roots."

"I understand," Oona said.

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Sverre leaned heavily on a runestone pointing out the distance of two neighboring towns. The sun no longer shone as brightly as it could. He felt wave after wave of sadness and despair rolling in off the sea. Not too far from his current position he'd seen a frightening apparition of a woman rise out of a hot spring. Apparently local legends stated she'd thrown herself to her death out of spite or something similar. He hadn't been fully paying attention.

Sverre raised a flask to his lips in a shaking hand and downed his potion.

"Hail, traveler," a female voice called out.

Sverre looked up wearily at a woman riding on a large horse with a cloak pulled over her face. He could only see a red braid hanging over her shoulder. She wore a strange fitted chainmail Sverre had never seen before.

"You look terrible. Have you been travelling long on foot?" she asked.

Sverre nodded, keeping his own cloak pulled tightly around himself.

The woman laughed. "Your golden armor gives you away. You pathetic lordlings think traversing Medheim easy. Tell your father that Brunhilde Fenrisblud will not be swayed by feats of strength."

She rode away and Sverre was more confused than he had ever been. "I'm already married," he called weakly by way of a retort.

Sverre trudged on, moving further and further inland towards the tree. Someone along the way would have an idea, he had to keep up that hope.

It wasn't fair. He hadn't intended to offset the balance of this plane to the point of a permanent apocalypse. Sverre hadn't known when he started his experiments just what he was getting into. It wasn't his fault.

Just like it wasn't his fault when 250 years ago he had pissed off a necromancer outside of a time rift and had to fight him. It wasn't his fault that he'd almost died, abandoning his wife and children, and been catapulted to this plane with no ability to return home. There wasn't a home for him to return to at this point. His Dominaria was out of reach. He couldn't go home.

And now here he was about to destroy his new one. Sverre slammed a fist into the ground upon finding nothing else around to hit. He was not going to die and abandon Oona. There had to be another way. He would find another way. The gods couldn't mean to kill him if they needed him so much.

"There's no way I'm dying," Sverre shouted up at the tree. "Do you hear me? I am not dying!"

He received no response. The tree stood there taking up the center of the horizon casting gray shadows in the cold light of the dying sun.

"Answer me, dammit!" Sverre shouted.

He paused, considered for a moment that he was screaming at a tree, and collected himself. His winged helmet that had been knocked askew was straightened and he dusted off his cloak before continuing onwards. He quietly seethed rather than vociferously declaring his anger to an indifferent heaven. The tree didn't care. The tree couldn't care. It was a tree. It lacked the passions of nature.

Sverre muttered to himself as he trekked onwards.

"There has to be a way around it. Maybe I can cut a deal with someone. There are plenty of gods. Yord isn't the only one. I'll make a deal with a god who understands what I have to do. Maybe a god of black mana."

All the while he felt the same thought resonating within him. The tree offered you a deal and you're refusing.

00000000

Finding Bald was easier than Oona thought, but she did not expect him to be moving. She found him wandering towards her palace wreathed in a halo of light. He took the form of a handsome youth with bright blond hair and shining eyes. Mayweed flowers grew in his wake only to wither and die through the magic of Helheim.

"Are we to make our customary bargain?" Bald asked of Oona as she took his arm to escort him to the tree. His brightness pierced the twilight of Helheim, pushing back the stirring dead who rose to prepare for war.

Oona remained silent. She didn't know what he meant.

"I see. Every time there is someone who will not weep for poor Bald. Why should this time be any different?"

They continued on in silence for some time. Oona felt him lean on her, supporting his own body with hers. The closer they drew to the tree, the weaker he became.

"Tell me, Guardian of the Roots, will I see my mother again?" Bald asked, looking to Oona with sad eyes.

"Yes, Bald, I believe you will." Oona's words came unbidden. She helped him to the ground where he leaned against the roots of Yggdrasil. A wound in his side Oona had not noticed before bled profusely, and the blood was drawn up into the tree. What little color existed in his shining face faded, as did his internal light. Within a few minutes, Bald was dead and mayweed flowers began to grow over his body.

 **AN: Short chapter for Sverre today, but lots of worldbuilding and set up. I have dug so deep into the Eddas and other Sagas to try and make Heim as rich of a plane as I can, and I'm very excited about the future for this character.**


	8. Chapter 8

Planar Chaos

The Redeeming of Sverre

Part Seven

Sverre found himself under perpetual twilight once again, only this time the tree's massive branches and trunk cast their shadow over the sun. A cold wind blew against him, slicing his unshaven cheeks with jagged ice crystals. This wind tasted of salt and metal and blood. It came from the island of the frost giants. The sun glowed weakly, almost as though it were sick. Between the pale shadow of a once vibrant sun and the waves of nauseating sorrow beating the shore, Sverre felt like vomiting. He also felt like laying down and sleeping and never getting up. Then maybe all his problems wouldn't be so immediate. He reached instinctively for a potion but remembered he was down to his last two. He had to make them last.

The gray bark of Yggdrasil was pulled away in places, revealing the soft peachy flesh of the tree beneath it. The closer he drew to its massive trunk the more frequently he saw deer tracks larger than his head. The elusive harts themselves were never seen for more than an instant. Their bony crowns twisted together like the thickest branches. He caught a glimpse of one standing proudly on a massive root. It lowered its head to chew at the bark of the world tree.

He collapsed against the tree trunk, slapping it affably. "Bet you didn't think I'd make it this far, huh?" He chuckled, but it was weak and unconvincing to his ears.

The tree didn't respond. It never responded.

Sverre frowned up at the tree. "I need some help getting up there, you know. I'm an old man."

In truth, the longer his journey went on the more wan his face became. Weeks of walking with little food ate away at his cheeks and eyes, leaving them hollow. His armor, once perfectly fitted to his form with magical smithery, now hung around him. It struck his sides like a bell when he walked. His hair and beard were no longer well-groomed. His helmet was long since gone, sold to cover a few hot meals. Sverre looked just as sickly as the rest of the plane he'd destroyed.

He felt hot breath on the top of his head. He looked up into the snout of one of the giant deer that fed of Yggdrasil's bark.

"And how am I supposed to get on your back?" Sverre asked indignantly. He barely came up to the goliath creature's knee.

Without hesitation the deer knelt down near a root, providing Sverre with a rudimentary ramp up to its back. After he'd mounted the beast, it stood gracefully and leapt into the air. The force jostled Sverre's entire being and he felt his potion bag smack against his shoulder.

00000000000000

The dead continued to pour into Helheim. Oona's one respite, the golden sun, had died with Bald. The white orb that took its place hid behind wintry clouds. In the distance she could see Jormungandr writhing with renewed vigor. The massive wurm, no longer tamed by Sverre's power, frightened her.

"Oona!" A familiar voice echoed through the halls of her palace. The former faerie queen of Lorwyn perked up at the sound.

"Yord! I'm on the terrace," she called in return.

The matronly Guardian stepped up beside Oona. The blue-skinned faerie couldn't help but notice the lines in Yord's face appeared deeper. Her blonde braid looked more disheveled and her apron bore stains.

"We're running out of time, Oona," Yord said solemnly. She placed an arm around Oona's shoulders, careful of the faerie's wings. "You've done an admirable job trying to adjust to all these new responsibilities. I want you to know I appreciate everything you've done for me and for the whole of Heim."

"Everything is in Sverre's hands now," Oona replied just as gravely.

"He is your husband. Do you trust he'll do the right thing?"

"I don't know."

"Come with me." Yord took Oona by the hand and led her to the base of Yggdrasil's roots, to the place Sverre entered the tree when this nightmare began. Oona glanced to the side and saw grave after grave dug by her own hands covered over in flowers.

"There is always hope," Oona said.

Yord considered the flowers growing over the graves of her many children. "You're right, there is always hope."

The two women entered the tree. Oona was greeted with the same bejeweled sight that had greeted Sverre upon his entrance into the tree. Yord smiled sadly and caressed the onyx, now whole with barely a seam where the gaping crack had been.

"You've made a real difference, Oona. I never thought to see this gem healed." Yord took Oona's hands and placed them on the onyx. She felt the black gem's power call out to her and gladly accepted it. Heim could be Oona's second chance.

Oona smiled at Yord. The mystical connection binding the three Guardians of Yggdrasil hummed through her body. "It pleases me to hear that, sister." She felt a tingling sensation in her hands and drew them away in confusion.

"It seems the tree has need of you higher up," Yord said as Oona felt herself drawn upward like water from the ground.

0000000000

The deer brought Sverre to one of Yggdrasil's lower branches, a faint rainbow marking the path they had taken. He looked around at the abundance of leaves that eagerly drank up what sun they could receive. The edges had started to wither and turn brown with the coming of Ragnarok and winter. At the outermost reaches Valkyries perched waiting for the final battle of the cycle to begin. Some appeared to be rolling dice, as if deciding the fate of the mortals below.

"Take me higher," Sverre demanded of the deer. "I need to speak with the Alven."

The deer snorted and shook its massive head, flicking its ears as though it had an itch.

"You're a damned giant rainbow bridge deer. I know you can take me higher."

The deer pawed at the branch below with its hoof before lowering its head to snack on bark. At least, Sverre thought, he was getting a response. It was more than he could say for the tree itself.

Sverre sighed dramatically. He slid down the deer's back and plummeted onto the branch below, landing with a thud. His potions did not make their customary clinking noise. Sverre thought this was odd and reached into his potion bag. His hand came out covered in distilled god-essence, blood, and broken glass.

No.

No. No.

Sverre collapsed to the branch. He held his wrist in one hand and stared blankly. The terror started in his stomach, clenching it and rolling it over and over like he was on a boat in Frija-Saga's unruly sea. He felt rage well up after the fear. He turned to scream at the deer, but it was gone. He turned to scream at the tree, to demand another way out. He would do anything other than what he knew it wanted. Hadn't he proven that enough? Then the sadness washed over him as he looked out at the world from his vantage point in Yggdrasil's branches. This was his fault, after all. He'd messed up the plane before even knowing how it operated.

A voice in his head that sounded like Kyari Alexiona chastised him repeatedly. Even the reckless Odom took better care of his experiments than Sverre had done with Helheim. Sure, he had been young when they began, but it wasn't an excuse anymore. His friends, some of whom were two centuries his junior, learned these lessons long before Sverre had.

"I know what I need to do. Just make it quick and painless."

A vine seemed to magically appear next to him. Sverre sighed and tied his own hangman's noose with steady hands. He took a deep breath, faced the tree, and breathed just one word.

"Oona…"

She appeared as if by magic just in time to see her husband dance a gallows jig.

"Sverre!" Oona collapsed, hiding her face from the sight of his death. She crawled out onto the branch, using her wings for balance, and feebly tugged at the vine that suspended his body from Yggdrasil. "Why did you show me this?" She cried.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and into the twilight forest below. Blood from Sverre's cut hand dripped alongside them. In the dimly lit woods, made by mingling the blood of fae, guardian, and mortal, the mischievous race known as the Dualven were reborn just as the plane around them began to die.

Oona's tears slowed. She remembered her words to Yord. "There's always hope," she muttered to herself. Oona once again gripped the vine that served as Sverre's hanging rope and pulled with all her might. The faeries of Lorwyn were not built for strength, a fact that followed her on every adventure with her planeswalking husband. She was shocked to find it easy to pull Sverre's body back up to the branch, almost as if Yggdrasil was helping her.

When she finally got his body back onto the branch, Oona put a hand to her mouth in shock. Sverre was certainly not dead. He blinked in confusion.

"Ugh," he groaned, "my head…" The hand he reached for his face with was now covered in deep blue markings that looked almost like runic tattoos. In fact, the left half his body was covered with the same markings. The source of his splitting headache was a set of antlers that had erupted from his skull, leaving bleeding patches on his scalp at their base.

"Sverre…" Oona gasped. "You're…"

"Not dead?" He asked.

"I was going to say some kind of deer man, but yes. That too. What even is this?"

"I think the tree just made me its bitch," Sverre said, feeling his new antlers and wincing when he touched the tender skin surrounding them.

"What do you mean?"

Sverre thought for a minute, unsure of how to phrase what he'd heard in his head upon dying. "Ever heard the saying 'a life for a life'?"

Oona nodded.

"It's something like that."


	9. Chapter 9

Planar Chaos

The Redemption of Sverre

Part Nine

The valkyries crouching on the outermost branches of Heim's world tree tossed their dice without so much as a glance towards the world below them. Each lot cast decided the fate of a single mortal warrior, determining who would survive the coming battle. The next generation of Guardians would be chosen from those that were to fall. Each had a chance to prove themselves with their valor and gain a kind of immortality before their souls were drawn permanently into Helheim to wander its cold darkness as spirits. Some may decide to haunt the layer of Medheim as ghosts or be called back up by necromancers as some other abomination, but only a select few would ever see Azheim and its glittering halls. These souls would be reborn and emerge fully formed in the image of the Guardians to be waited upon by the long-lived and fair elves until such a time as they had to lay down their lives again.

Sverre looked upon the angels who dealt both life and death with a cold, detached hand. The angels of other planes inspired hope and bravery in the hearts of soldiers. They dealt justice with impassioned war cries on Ravnica. They protected humans and their settlements on Dominaria, Innistrad, the now whole Alara, and a host of other worlds. Angels were born of Serra's white mana and spread from her sacred realm to fill the other worlds. The valkyries were of the same stock, but they lacked mercy and compassion. Sverre would eventually compare their function to that of Athreos, the ferryman of Theros who brought souls to the underworld. He wouldn't want one of them to be his guide in death if this was how they treated the living.

"Oona," Sverre said, "you'll be needed back home. I have work to do."

Oona wiped tears from her eyes with a delicate hand and nodded in agreement. "You're running out of time. I must be ready to guide the Guardians who die in battle to the roots. Yord has been a good teacher. I believe I understand what my new role is in the cycle."

"I learned several things while I was dead. We have until the armies of the damned spill from the caverns connecting Helheim to Medheim to make our preparations." He looked up, feeling the weight of his new antlers pulling his neck further back until the muscles strained to keep it upright. This would take some getting used to. "I don't think I can planeswalk to get reinforcements. I wish Kyari was here to aid me with her knowledge of the leylines, though."

He felt a reply from the tree that confirmed his suspicions. Sverre was stuck here until he fulfilled his purpose. The ally he sought was far away on another plane in the midst of another war.

"Come back to me," Oona said softly. She turned reluctantly from her husband and began walking back to the trunk. Her delicate, shimmering wings faded from view as Yggdrasil returned her to Helheim.

Sverre remained silent. He looked up at the tree once more and made an unspoken request for his scalp to stop bleeding.

Couldn't he do that himself?

"You're incredibly helpful, you know that?" Sverre said sarcastically. He pulled green mana from the tree and passed a hand over his antlers. The skin drew back together and the blood re-entered his veins. "At least I can get a response from you, though. Was that really too much to ask for earlier?"

Sass wasn't going to get him any favors. The tree was as dispassionate as the valkyries sitting on its branches.

"Can I get down?" He looked over the edge of the branch. The trees below looked as small as the city models urban planners used on Ravnica. Perhaps Sverre could jump, or slide down on the vine he'd used to hang himself. The tree could easily grow it long enough to reach the ground.

He felt hot breath on the back of his neck. Another deer, possibly the same one that brought him to this branch, stood proudly behind him. Sverre needed no assistance to swing up onto its back this time.

"Take me down, please," Sverre said. "To the forest below."

The deer delicately took a step off the side of the branch and plummeted before its hooves caught the air and the descent slowed into an ever widening spiral path. A faint rainbow followed the deer's steps. They came to a halt in a dense copse of trees. The thickly tangled branches were bare, the dying sun's silvery light filtered through the clouds and cast gray shadows on the undergrowth. Several pairs of yellow eyes peered out from the grayness.

Angled features like those of their Alven cousins were paired with slit pupils and knowing smirks. The bravest of them bowed deeply to Sverre, but it was a mocking gesture at best.

"Welcome, dear savior of the Dualven. How may we serve you?"

"I need no servants," Sverre said to the ashen-skinned faeries. They possessed wings like Oona and the same insectile feet as her subjects from Lorwyn. "Only to know that your race yet lives and can regain your place in the cycle."

"We'll not be on the side of your Guardians," the leader said. "We have our own."

"Yggdrasil knows this and it used my blood and the tears of my wife to revive you anyway. You have your lives. Do with them what you will."

"You could come with us," another one said. Sverre couldn't tell if these beings were male or female. Perhaps they were both or neither. In the books he'd read in the wizard college's library the Dualven were described as equally tempting to men and women. They lived in forests on the edge of wetlands, using illusions and magical manipulations to draw mortals to either death or an existence outside the cycle.

"Unfortunately nothing you can offer me will make me forget my duty or my wife." Sverre urged the deer onwards, leaving the scheming Dualven to their own devices.

"May the heavens and hells forbid Vilhelm ever come across those beings," he muttered to the deer. It seemed to snort in agreement. "Where to next?"

The deer took Sverre towards the coast. Its loping strides covered a surprising amount of distance quickly. He looked out at the landscape around him. Crops struggled in the fields, having anticipated a few more months of growth. The weakened mortals seemed hollow. Each gust of wind carried the sorrow of the Guardian of the seas, demoralizing them further.

How will they ever be able to fight back if this is what sustains them, Sverre asked himself. He looked down at his own hands. The cycles of resurrection and rotting had been at his fingertips. A single zombie could explode into a strong plant if he willed it.

"Find me a graveyard, please," Sverre asked the deer.

He was taken to a burned out field of ash littered with the remains of pyres.

"That's right," Sverre said to himself, talking aloud now. "They burn their dead on this plane." The ash would still serve his purpose, though. He dismounted and buried his hands in the earth. The fertility of the earth depended on the cycle of death and rebirth. Death had already occurred, and though the process had been corrupted by fire he could still use these remains to rejuvenate the land.

The remains of the pyre logs contained vestiges of green mana still hiding in their unburnt hearts. The ashes of the dead, turned into a slurry by rainfall, were given over to black mana as all dead things were. He drew on the power mana afforded a planeswalker to revive the long-abandoned farmland underneath. Roots of ancient crops sprang to life. He accelerated time, pulling blue mana from the nearby river and the clouds of mist rolling from its banks, and the crops began to grow before his eyes.

The deer snorted, bringing Sverre's attention to a pair of small children on the far bank watching him with wide eyes and gaping mouths. He waved awkwardly before standing, mounting his steed, and continuing on his way.

The children ran back to their village with a fantastic tale of a horned man who turned the burning field into a lush garden in the blink of an eye, their youth causing them to exaggerate. It would be some time before Sverre became aware of the cult of the horned god and the miracles attributed to him. Inevitably he would let his newfound status go to his head, but that is a tale for another time. For now, Sverre continued on towards the coast, led by his mount and the world tree.

"If this war is going to happen soon," Sverre said to the deer after some time in silence, "we're going to need all the help we can get. I don't suppose you have a direct line to the tree?"

The deer remained silent, listening intently.

"You're its representative to me, then? Whatever. If at all possible, send some of your friends to find Tryphaena the khenra and Rott the Disenchanter. One lives in the wizard college on the opposite coast, the other lives in some ancient woods."

The deer tossed its head in a motion that resembled a nod.

"Are you supposed to be my new familiar or something? I already have one. It's Jormungandr, the zombie wurm."

Sverre thought for a moment. Jormungandr wouldn't listen to him when Ragnarok began. If he was going to survive this and witness more than one turn of the cycle, he would need a back up familiar.

"Okay. I guess you can stay. What am I going to call you, though? I can't just call you 'deer'. Your antlers look kind of like oak branches, but spiked like thorns. I guess I can call you Oakthorn. It's not terribly original, but I'm not terribly original when put on the spot."

Oakthorn snorted approvingly and continued on at a brisk canter. Sverre felt his runed palm tingle and examined it closer to see an acorn surrounded by a runic spell.

"Huh. I guess Yggdrasil thought of everything."

 **AN: The tree is immortal. The tree is all knowing. All glory to the hypnotree.**


	10. Chapter 10

Planar Chaos

The Redeeming of Sverre

Part Ten

Rott sauntered through the forest at a leisurely pace seeking out more lingonberries. The early winter caused by the Ragnarok cycle's disruption meant he would be fighting every beast of the wood for the delicious treat. Unlike the beasts, he knew how to preserve them in jams, cordials, and all manner of other treats. There were a few bushes that only he seemed to know about, and they were always laden with the succulent red orbs of sweetness. He'd never seen another being, animal or otherwise, in the clearing where they grew.

Until today, that is.

One of the deer with towering antlers who fed on Yggdrasil's bark stood in the middle of his bushes, munching away on his berries. Juice dribbled out the sides of its mouth as the lower jaw made a vaguely circular motion to grind the berries on its flat teeth. The creature had a placid intelligence about it and Rott stood in awe at the sight. He reached up and stroked the carving of Tyroden's raven on his tusk.

"As I live and breathe," Rott said as softly as his gravelly voice would allow, "he actually did it."

The deer bowed its head and looked at Rott expectantly.

"Hold on, now," he said. "Adventure is fine and all but I've got some preparations to make and things to get."

"Like these things?" A feminine voice said from behind him. Rott turned around and was faced by a woman who appeared to be half dog wearing a brass-colored chestplate adorned with a winged sun disk. She held a rucksack in two fingers and Rott's disenchanting staff in her palm. Her midsection and upper legs were obscured by a breezy white cloth. Her greaves and armguards were made of leather. A curved blade hung from her waist. A diadem depicting a golden dog head surrounded by sun rays sat between her pointed ears. Everything stood out in stark contrast to her pitch black fur.

"How did you…? Who are you?" Rott asked.

"Tryphaena. Your gods gave me a vision. We are to aid Sverre in restoring your world to its balance. We have little time and must make haste." Tryphaena said, trying not to bark like she was giving orders. She was no longer with her crop, all of them were long dead including her twin brothers. Bast, their leader, had fallen easily before Tryphaena, who had been fueled not by piety but by vengeance. Bast robbed her brothers of their afterlife, so Tryphaena eagerly returned the favor.

Look at where that had gotten her. Instead of the afterlife she had been promised by the twin tips of Hazoret's spear, she'd been thrown to a cold world that was dying so it could be reborn. The God Pharaoh had rejected her.

"If that's the plan," Rott said, pulling Tryphaena out of her thoughts, "how do we do it?"

Tryphaena thought, placing her free hand on her chin. "Do the men of your world raise armies to fight in this war? Where do they meet? How do they train?"

"I'm not sure myself," Rott said. "My kind aren't particularly welcome among men." He gestured to his tusks and green tinged skin.

"And I too strike fear into their hearts," Tryphaena sighed.

"You'd fit right in among the berserkers," Rott supplied.

"I've heard that before. It's what the wizards think I am, a cursed or trapped Berserker."

"Cursed? No. You've achieved perfect balance between animal ferocity and human intelligence. They would probably beg you to teach them how you achieved this. How did you achieve this?"

"Where I'm from, there are people who have the head and wings of birds, bodies that are hybrids of man and jackal, our gods are beast-headed as well."

"Where is this land?" Rott asked eagerly.

"Incredibly far away. I don't think you'd be able to get there if you sailed for a year." Her ears drooped.

"Is that one of your gods?" Rott asked, gesturing to the diadem on Tryphaena's head.

She took it off and looked into the ruby eyes of Hazoret. "She was, and the special god of my people. We called her Hazoret, the Fervent. Some older carvings even referred to her as the Mother of Zeal. I cannot worship her as such anymore after her betrayal. My gods abandoned me and cast me adrift for my impiety." It felt good to talk. This troll-man couldn't know anything about her world or the Trials, but she saw something in his eyes that made her feel like he could understand her feelings.

"Well, no time like the present. We should be going," Rott said, grabbing his rucksack and staff before swinging up onto the back of the deer.

Or not, Tryphaena thought. "To the berserkers?"

"Aye," Rott said. "I know where a group of them camp."

They rode quietly through the forest. Tryphaena craned her neck around to see the faint trail of rainbow mist left by the deer. She hadn't seen rainbows before coming to this world. The rain streaking through sunlight was a phenomenon unknown to the deserts of Amonkhet. The Hekma that kept beasts and wandering corpses away from the city distorted the brilliance of the suns, making the light thrown from gems and prisms soft and flat. The wizards in their college used crystal prisms in some of their spells. Tryphaena remembered marveling at the splitting of light into an array of colors when she'd first encountered them on this world.

"So…" Rott began, "abandoned by your gods, huh?"

"It seems that way," Tryphaena replied. "When we complete our trials and present ourselves before Hazoret for the judgment of her spear, we are supposed to go to our afterlife. I was sent here instead, away from the warm sands and refreshing waters of the Luxa river to a chilly, rainy land where nobody is like me."

"Your gods walk among you?"

"Yes. And we can feel them coming. Each of the five gods has a distinct aura. Oketra exudes connection and love for your fellow creatures, Rhonas strength and vitality of the self, Kefnet the inner mysteries of the world, Bontu drives us to better ourselves through ambition, and Hazoret… She fuels it all with unrelenting motivation."

"I see what you mean by her being the mother of zeal," Rott said. "You've been in this land long enough to understand our gods?"

"To a point. They do not come to you but once every century. They also can die. How is it you know they are gods if they can die?"

"If you saw an ancient hero returned in your time of need would you not think they had become a god for their deeds?"

"I see your point. Are we close to the berserker camp?"

They crested a hill and Tryphaena's question was answered. She could see a series of fires dotting the distant hills and disappearing into the woods.

"I didn't think there would be so many," she said.

"The berserkers aren't just warriors. They have families and a way of life as hunters. Only the elite are able to create the charmed pelt required to unleash their bestial nature in battle."

"What happens to the pelt when they use it?"

"It fuses with their bodies, I think, because they become half-man, half-beast. At least according to the books I've read that's what happens."

"And you think they'll be okay with me, a stranger, having seemingly achieved this state permanently?"

"It's worth a shot. You could always scream something about battle. These primitive savages will eat that up."

"Strong words coming from a man who has more in common with a boar."

Rott snorted. He pursed his lips around his tusks, suddenly very aware of their presence.

"You live in the woods alone foraging for your own food, yes?" Tryphaena asked. "How are you different or better than these warriors who wish to harness the power of the beast? The strength and vitality of serpent-headed Rhonas was exemplified in our trial that pitted us against creatures in his menageries. Kefnet taught us the importance of knowledge, but a true warrior cannot have one or the other. They must have both strength and knowledge within them." Tryphaena felt a twinge in her stomach. She was scolding Rott, a creature that most certainly was older than herself. When Tryphaena faced her final trial she was sixteen. How long had she been on this plane? It felt like ages, but could not have been more than a year or so.

"I follow Tyroden, the protector," Rott huffed. "What would I want with a bunch of Fenris-loving forest-dwellers? They don't even worship a Guardian. They worship an animal."

"Then why are we here? You said they could help us, right?"

"That doesn't mean I like them."

"Mr. Rott, I am not asking you to like them. I am asking you to help me gain their trust. The gods of your world chose us to help our friend. Ragnarok is coming. We don't have time for your prejudices." Perhaps, Tryphaena thought, the people of this world would benefit from some of Oketra's teachings. The Khenra, Naga, Aven, Minotaurs, and humans all worked together in diverse crops on Amonkhet to achieve their goal of being anointed by the tips of Hazoret's spear.

"I can't believe I'm being lectured by a kid."

"In my land, I'm one of the oldest living people. We spend our lives training and then we die in the trials. The unworthy are removed like weeds from farmland as the crop thins until only the best are left. Despite my shortcomings, I was the best out of mine. I surpassed our leader, Crop Captain Bast, when it finally came down to it. Her corpse is now dressed in linen and serving those that now prepare for the trials and I am here, chosen by another group of gods for a higher purpose."

"I can't tell if you command my respect or demand my attention right now."

Tryphaena rolled her eyes. She'd always had little patience with scholars. Her isolation when Sverre had met her at Skadivik college hadn't entirely been based on her appearance or self-imposed. She jumped off the back of the still moving deer and took off at a brisk run, feeling the welcome weight of her kopesh bouncing against her thigh.

This is my purpose now, Tryphaena thought. I will take your teachings to heart, Oketra, and help my new friends. I will learn from your creatures, Rhonas, that I may know their strength. I will drink from the font of knowledge, Kefnet, that I may be quick-witted in battle. I will make a name for myself, Bontu, and honor your commandments. Through these trials I will be fueled by the sacred fire burning for me in Hazoret's heart. The five gave me this new destiny. I shall not squander it.

 **AN: Hey look. Some side character development. I really like Tryphaena as a concept and really wanted to do more with her, but I needed to figure out exactly what. Also Rott has it in him to be kind of an asshole. If you deal with a lifetime of humans simultaneously being afraid of you because you aren't human but also really wanting you to fix their problems because magic, you might be kind of pissy too.**


End file.
